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Villa contrived to lose by the only goal away from home, Herts lost 4-0 in Zagreb, but Everton managed a 4-0 win and Fulham comfortably beat Amkar Perm 3-1 to give themselves a good chance of going through into whatever the next round is, despite Andrew Johnson breaking his collarbone. Elsewhere Galatasary and Ajax both won by 5 clear goals, while Roma's visit to MFK Kosice was a 3-3 thriller... with four penalties scored.

Away from the excitement of actual football, a deposit is put down on the purchase of Birmingham with an offer of £81.5m in hard cash and Johnathan Greening moves to Fulham on a season long loan.

Paul Hart denies that David James wants to leave Portsmouth as Peter Storie's own takeover bid gathers pace.

Neil Warnock gets away with branding everyone a cheat after his comments last weekend and keeps harping on about how morally he should be awarded a sainthood for putting up with Bristol's evil decision to not score an own goal. Or something. I lose the will to live when he opens his mouth these days.

the press in Scotland are determined to unsettle the Celtic squad. Rangers can't afford to buy anyone so they think Celtic will have to sell players to balance the books due to not reaching the Champions League. it's bullshit, Celtic are in a very, very healthy financial state and don't have to sell a single player.

hahahahaha what you lot like with your paranoia and conspiracies?
Rangers to play Hearts at Tynecastle on sunday, hearts have looked shit all week but will no doubt pick up against us, in saying that they won't have to pick up much as we ain't looking great, i can see dropped points :(
Word on the street is Rangers will punt Boyd for anything over £500k and that would spell the end of any title challenge. Cos Miller and Lafferty sure as hell ain't gonna get the goals.

As a Motherwell fan, I'm not best pleased Hibs have got Stokes, was hoping they'd be the top 6 contender to really hit the skids this year, allowing us to sneak back in. Apparently we're aiming to get a young Premiership striker in on loan today, but no-one seems to have any idea who it is.

St. Johnstone were pretty good against us last week by all accounts, although I suspect you'll have too much for them at home. Wouldn't expect to give them a doing though. We've got Killie at home, and I'm expecting that mutant lump Kyle to absolutely piss all over our midget back line and probably score a hat trick, as we can't seem to deal with anyone over the height of about 5'8". Our only hope is gonna be to keep the ball for as long as possible, with any luck our new pitch is as lush as the club are boasting...

Seconded on the shite we've had to put up with from Diadora, only ever had one shirt and it all but disintegrated after 3 washes. Hope we get some sort of design off Adidas rather than the same template kit half the national sides in Europe seem to sport.

Interesting test of the new formation, Everton and Celtic both tried to win the game whereas Pompey will presumably be looking to park the bus and merk us from a set piece. We've struggled against that sort of stuff in the past so need to show we've learnt how to break down teams like this.

I would much rather be a fan of a Championship club where the division between being a club on the edge of the relegation battle or the edge of play off battle is extremely thin than a club outside the top 4 or 5 in the Premiership where the best you can realistically hope for is a possible punt at the Europa League.

I know the golds and sullivan want to sell but last time this game came along we went into turmoil, we'd still be a prem side ans would have been in the league for years, rather than a brief dip back in the champ.

The absolute last thing i want is to become the new city, i'd hate to have tevez adebayor robinho santa claus bellamy et al. All i want is to stay above Villa.

financial backing are Durham City of the Unibond League whose main backer have pulled out funding following the Conference's decision not to allow them entry into the Blue Square North if they were to finish in the promotion places. The reason is Durham's artificial pitch.

No one thinks you could struggle this season *just* because you've lost Cristiano Ronaldo: people think you could struggle because, on paper, and considering the level of success you're aiming for, your team looks rubbish. Your midfield does, anyway. And, as far as I was concerned at least, any reluctance to write you off before the season started was based purely on the notion that Alex Ferguson can build a decent team out of ordinary players.

Now the season has started, however, there's evidence that his ability as a manager isn't enough to compensate for the sub-par abilities of more players than you can reasonably be expected to get away with. And nor, do I think, are the abilities of the more talented players - certainly not in the way that Ronaldo's was. I, along with anyone else of a similar view, may yet be proved wrong, but I think some of the things that have been said by Man U fans in the wake of their poor start to the season - "We always start the season slowly", for example - are exceptionally naive.

but no amount of managerial ability is going to win you the league with Burton Albion. Or Leyton Orient. Or Watford. There's got to be enough for you to work with in the first place; the question is, does the current Manchester United team lie within that sequence of teams not good enough or outside it? And on the limited evidence available so far, maybe it's the former. I'm prepared to withhold judgement, even if I've maybe phrased what I said in a way that suggests I'm not.

What I do quite strongly believe, though, is if they have a good season, it will purely because of Alex Ferguson and not because Wayne Rooney or Michael Carrick or Dimitar Berbatov or any combination of them is picking up the slack left behind by the weaker players. For varying reason, I don't think any of them has the ability to do that.

I'm a big fan of their technical ability, but I don't think either is the sort of player to carry a game, Berbatov because he's lazy and Carrick because he's in the team to sit in front of the defence and pick off passes rather than to run around and hassle opposition players, which exactly what every team needs. Rooney I just don't think is good enough, however hard he works.

i was talking about the fact that its all that is reported in the paper.

i agree with what you and kik have been saying. our midfield isnt strong enough and for all rooneys effort a lot of the time it doesnt lead to anything (in a similar way to giggs and scholes now i guess)

I read that he had a chance which he hit straight at Given. After his goal scoring debut for West Ham the hype went into overdrive and he never really lived up to it. A loan to Palace is a good idea as he's pretty small and lightweight so hopefully this toughens him up a bit.

with so many new signings in our preferred starting 11, getting them to play together is more important than a night off.
Plus Pompey only have @16 players in there entire squad so if we lose against them because of fatigue we should be looking at relegation

today is the last day of the current season for the newcastle city library 5-a-side team
we're four points adrift at the foot of the table but will we go down fighting?! (last three results 0-19 0-11 6-12)

It's always gonna be fun to watch a team with City's class midfield and strikeforce.

I don't think people should be getting ahead of themselves though. There were shouts all round of "they'll finish top 3 EASILY" but let's not forget we watched a team of international class beat a struggling Championship team by 2 goals. It's not headline stuff.

PS. Please can everyone on TV give the "big spending City" spiel a rest? Every single time they're mentioned we get reminded of their 'unprecedented buying' and it's getting boring / rubbing in the jealousy.

We all know that Liverpool only have 2 players.
Chelsea are strong all the way through.
Fergie and Arsene both have the good kids and play as solid 'teams'.
Spurs aren't too far behind.

where do you put City?
Obviously, you've bought a top 4/5 first team but what about the rest? But will a smattering of injuries to the summer buys leave you with a huge gulf in quality and gaping holes in your team filled by players who aren't good enough to get near the Europa League?

It would depend on the match. On Wednesday, Gio played on the left with O'Hara in the middle, and if we came up against weaker opposition in the league without Modric available, I suspect (I hope, anyway) that Gio would fill in again. Against a stronger team, though, O'Hara maybe would have been selected to give us more resolve down that side. But more to the point, if we've lost Boateng and O'Hara, bringing in a central midfielder is going to be a far greater priority than bringing in a left-winger.

Davies is out injured, but MON suggests that the deal for Dunne is... wait for it.... far from being DUNNE and dusted. See what I did there? Amazing.

However he's in my FF Team and is currently my own defender who's less than 74% pure stinking shite. Will he sign, get clearance and then play by 4pm Sunday do you think? Or should I risk minus poins and go for my emergency Burnley fella away to Chelsea?

We've apparently been courting this guy Sandro from Internacional for the last few weeks. A couple of days ago, we allegedly put in a bid (£14 million, I think) which was rejected as too low. Today we've announced a "strategic partnership" with Internacional.

What's Martin Petrov got to do with anything? What's the £4 million we got for Boateng got to do with anything? And for what conceivable reason would O'Hara be good enough for us in the future if he's not even seen as a necessary squad player now? He's 22, he's already had a fair amount of first-team football... Oh wait, I've already said this, haven't I. For some reason it seemed like I hadn't.

Hey, how about this: Peter Storrie's on the phone to Harry Redknapp - asks if we've got any other players we can help him out with. Harry says "Well I guess you could take Jamie O'Hara on loan for a while" because he's friends with Peter Storrie and he feels like he owes Pompey one a bit. If any other club had been after him, Harry would have said no. What do you think?

We have players who can - and do - play on the left side of midfield. Plenty of them. If we lose one of Huddlestone and Palacios on the other hand, we're fucked. You think Harry wants so sign Petrov so if one of our central midfielders gets injured, we can move Modric inside and put Petrov on the left? So we can replace one of our defensive central midfielders with an attacking midfielder? And completely change the system we're playing? Is that what you think? You think that, if we sign Petrov, Harry will say "Right, that's the central midfield sorted then"? That we won't look completely threadbare in that area?

Funnily enough - and this might blow your mind, so I'd make sure you're sitting down before you read it - we do try to sign players other than those who play for Man City. So if, on your Man City forums, it says we're after Martin Petrov and nothing else, I wouldn't take that as an indication that he's the only player we're attempting to sign.

He's not even the player we've been most consistently linked with. In fact all the players we *have* been consistently linked with are defensive midfielders, as bizarre as that may sound to you (but not to anyone who takes anything more than a via-Man City interest in Spurs). In fact only a couple of posts up, I posted this: http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4195461#r4845336 Probably just a coincidence though, right? The fact that we've been consistently linked with Sandro (a defensive midfielder, by the way) and the fact that we've just announced a partnership with the club he plays for probably have nothing to do with each other.

And the fact that we've just had defensive midfielder Kevin Anin on trial... well, I don't know how you'd explain that, but I'm sure it doesn't mean that we're after a defensive midfielder either. And all the stuff linking us with Moussa Sissoko before Toulouse decided they wanted £24 million for him... yeah, that was probably just bollocks.

Modric plays on the left, I don't know if you've noticed this. You think Harry wants so sign Petrov so if one of our central midfielders gets injured, we can move Modric inside and put Petrov on the left? So we can replace one of our defensive central midfielders with an atta... Shit, I'm repeating myself again. It's incredible how you draw that out of me.